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EDGAR ALLAN POE: THE TELL-TALE HEART - Coggle Diagram
EDGAR ALLAN POE: THE TELL-TALE HEART
the beginning of the 19th century
Dark Romanticism
literary movement
reached America in 1820
Edgar Allan Poe
took the European Gothic tradition & transplanted it to a typical American landscape or in the middle of nowhere
turned upside down the European conventions
the male character is hypersensitive
the female character torments and destroys the male
family becomes the central principle
Romantic elements
the misunderstood artist exiled from society
he is tortured by this hypersensitivity
The Philosophy of Composition
length
all literary writings
should be short
can be read without interruption
logical method
the process of good writing
methodological
analytical
accurate
unity of effect
the emotional effect on the reader
central importance
the development of hundreds of miles of railroads
industry bloomed
many technological innovations coming into fruition
abundance of historical events
War of 1812 between the Unites States and the Great Britain
The White House was burned
1831:huge slave rebellion
influx of immigrants from Europe and Asia
the expansion of America's territorial holdings with the Mississipi River
the continual transformation from a nation of farmers to an industrial and urban setting
tuberculosis
leading cause of death
idealists
championed human rights
abolition of slavery
improvements were made to the printing press
Publication date
1843
The United States was entering a period of great internal conflicts
Themes
love and hate
mental illness
guilt
he cannot stand his burden
confesses his deed to the police
time
references to time and clocks
home
place of violence, death, disease
cunning & cleverness
we find we are caught in the story' web just as the characters
mortality
we know the murderer, but not his motives
Motifs
animals
the murderer dehumanizes his victim by likening him to an animal
symbols
eyes
haunts the narrator
essence of human identity which cannot be separated from the body
perception
awareness
truth
"evil"
belief in the supernatural ability
cast a curse with a malevolent glare
heart
shows that the narrator is delusional
the watch
it watches time
tells tales of time
lantern
the narrator keeps most of the light hidden
Point of view
first person
narrated by the insane protagonist
unreliable confession
narrator
pretends to be omniscient
tells us how the old man feels and what he is thinking
controls the narrative
we see through their eyes
tells the story retrospectively
remembering the events while being locked up in a prison/mental institution
Genres
Gothic short story
detective story
science fiction
Setting
a house
bedroom
the murder takes place
scary
it is not described
bed
murder weapon
burial place
creepy
urban area
the police can be contacted easily & respond quickly
landscape of the narrator's mind
it echoes the external or surface setting
Characters
the old man
rich
he possesses treasures and gold
he must have known about the narrator's violent tendencies
may have been the narrator's guardian or father
the narrator
murderer
he hates and murders the old man's vulture eye
mad
nervous
neighbour
hears a little scream
calls the police
Tone
dreadfully nervous
sad
Writing style
concisely chaotic
the longer sentence is actually less ambiguous and frustrating than the very short ones
carefully constructed world
a miniature word puzzle where each piece reflects an angle of the narrator's chaotic mind